


Birds of a feather, wolves who run together

by wmthackeray



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arya is everywhere but also no where, Arya writes him LETTERS, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Gendry thinking a lot, Letters, Love Letters, Not really AU because it's....after the show ends, Pining, Swearing, descriptions of violence, i will not let these idiots GO, jk a lot, only a little, she does show i promise, soft, you all know what to expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 12:39:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18941137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wmthackeray/pseuds/wmthackeray
Summary: The first letter comes almost five months after the council.orGendry gets letters from the West and does a lot of thinking about Arya. Eventually, she shows up.





	Birds of a feather, wolves who run together

**Author's Note:**

> hey, we ALL know she's coming back. what if she wrote him letters while she was gone? that he can't reply to! how fun would that be! woo! do let me know how this is, if it makes any sense at ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The first letter comes almost five months after the council.

  
He is sitting at desk tracing the same letters over and over again when the Maester comes in.  

  
“My Lord,” he says, and Gendry feels the familiar tug in his chest that the epithet belongs to anyone but him, “a….peculiar letter has arrived.”

  
“What do you mean, peculiar?” He can read just fine now, thank you very much, and the parchment that now lays on his desk does not look out of the ordinary from the outside anyhow. 

  
“Well, the bird that delivered it is not one I have ever seen nor read about before.” Gendry feels like all the air has rushed out of the room. “I will be sure to write the Citadel about this and ask for some research. “  

  
“That sounds….fine. Thank you.” He wants to pat himself on the back for getting any words out at all without sounding like someone punched him in the gut.

  
Whatever is west of Westeros, Gendry is glad there are birds strong enough to cross the sea.

  
Half of him wants to rip open the letter immediately and half of him wants to rip it up.

  
Instead, he does not open it for three days. 

   
On the first day, he starts to busy himself with whatever he can find. He attends to his writing lessons with perhaps a bit too much determination, as he breaks two quills and spills a pot of ink. The kind woman tutoring him, named Elisa, is unable to hide the concern from her face and asks him what is wrong, but he shakes his head and tells her he will replace the quills.

   
“My lord, your writing is becoming better each lesson. Very soon, I will speak to the Maester about having you draft your own letters,” she says in a clear attempt to cheer him, not understanding why it causes him to pale. 

   
On the second day he walks the entirety of the castle, often looking at the sea and pretending not to scan the horizon.  

   
He visits the markets inside the walls, thankful that summer is finally coming and he can have fresh fruits again. He makes sure to say hello to as many people as he can on his way around. Perhaps next week he will ride up the Kingsroad and visit some villages on the boarder of the Stormlands, ensuring everyone is coming out of winter alright. He does have plans as a lord beyond collecting money from people and entertaining other stuck-up nobles, if there are any left. He’d like to explore these lands that are now his more, getting to know the people who are allegedly pledged to him. He’d like to do something for children, orphans and bastards, something that will make this stone monstrosity of a construction feel more like a home and less like a prison. He feels so alone among all of these people, all of his friends in Kings Landing or Winterfell or….elsewhere. 

   
He spends the third day in the forge. He has stripped himself of his black lordly clothing, told the Maester he will be unavailable for the day, and has been pounding metal since the sun came up. Swords and other things useless in peacetime, useless like he feels.

   
He can’t help but be angry as he pounds steel over and over again. Why would she send him a fucking letter that he can’t even reply to? When she barely spoke to him after he thought she was dead, again? She is like this entire new life he has, always just out of his reach.

   
“Fuck,” he mutters as he hammers one too many times, misshaping the metal he’s working on. “Fuck.” This time, he screams it and tosses the hammer to the ground.

   
Being Lord of Storm’s End feels largely purposeless, since everyone did just fine without one for quite a while. Down here, he allows himself to be bitter about it. He almost begged the King to revoke his title, but Ser Davos convinced him otherwise. 

   
“You can do good,” he had said to him when they all came together to unknowingly select a new king. That day had filled him with hope, in spite of himself. Hearing Lord Tyrion wax poetic about stories and lineage and breaking the wheel filled him with hope that maybe he could do something to jumpstart this new age, too. 

   
And though he is trying to do that it all feels empty. Peace is not something he has ever known. He does not know how to bear it. Especially not alone.

* * *

_I hope you’ve learned how to read by now or this letter is a waste of time. I hope being a Lord is all you wanted it to be. A castle, people to serve you, regular baths, and plenty of people to take care of — you were always good at that. I know it’s not what you wanted, but it’s better than being dead, right?_

_But enough about you. I’m the one leading an interesting life these days, after all._

_The boat ride was fucking awful. At least I know how to swim. Now that you live above Shipbreaker’s Bay  you must learn sooner or later, honestly. It’s stupid to think you shouldn’t._

_We got to land, eventually. Of course there are people here—I didn’t expect to be some kind of discoverer and conquerer. I just want to see what is over here, if it’s any better that what I left behind. Any different._

_Did you like that bird? I do hope it made it and this hasn’t just disintegrated to the bottom of the sea, or something. Hope your Maester gets a bit twisted trying to identify it. Don’t let him keep it, though. If its got any brains it’ll fly right back once it's delivered this._

_Tell my sister I’m alive or not — up to you. I might send her a letter as well. I hope she enjoys being Queen and the halls of our home are not too hard for her to walk. I bet Bran is doing just fine with those all-seeing eyes of his or whatever. I do miss Jon. I hope he is not sad for the rest of forever. Same goes for you._

* * *

 He visits the North after a personal invitation from the Queen herself on the anniversary of the Long Night. Summer is in full blast, making Storm’s End almost as hot as an oven,  but it bothers almost no one. After such a Winter, even the people of the Stormlands are thankful for the sun.

  
And yet, the North has a chill. Perhaps it will never be truly warm there after all that has happened. Or maybe Gendry really is a shitty Southerner with no tolerance for the fucking cold. 

  
Gendry assumes the Queen has extended an invitation to those who were there that night and survived, though not all have come. When he arrives at Winterfell he finds Ser Davos and Ser Brienne. A small party, then. There is a feast in the hall and they all sit at the head of the table, Sansa in the middle and all of them to her right. At her left are two empty chairs. Gendry does not know who they are for, but suspects they are always there, always empty as a reminder. Sansa is regal, he thinks, meant to be a ruler. Deserving of respect. They are seated in front of  northern men and women who had fought that night, as well as families of those that had died. A kind Queen as well, then. 

   
“My Lord,” says Ser Brienne, sitting at his right, “how are you finding Storm’s End?” He looks up at her — she really is so, so tall — and sees in her eyes what he sees when he sometimes looks into a glass. Firm, as they have always been, but weary from expecting a fight around every corner and looking for faces in crowds that she will not find.  He suspects, if the rumors had been true, that this castle holds many a bittersweet memory for her.

   
“It is large and lonely, Ser,” his tongue loosened from the wine. He does not drink, usually, unwilling to surrender his wits and his words. 

   
“And the capitol? How is it being on a King’s council?” he asks, directing the question to both Ser Brienne and Ser Davos, seated on his other side. 

   
The knights look at each other and shrug. “It is…interesting,” says Ser Brienne. “In truth, I am surprised it has all worked out without any bloodshed since the King’s coronation. But it is an honor to be serving in a time of peace for a King that will maintain it.”

   
“What the Lady Knight means,” says Ser Davos, “is it gets fucking boring sometimes.” Gendry snickers, and even Ser Brienne manages a smirk.

   
“Now, Ser Davos, inaction has it’s momen—,” she begins, but cuts herself off as the Queen stands. The hall stands with her as she holds out her cup, eyes roaming over these people she has gathered in remembrance and celebration. 

   
“A year ago, my sister Arya Stark” — Gendry does not flinch, he _doesn’t —"_ killed the Night King. But she was only able to do so because of the sacrifice of hundreds of soldiers, men and woman alike, Dothraki, Unsullied, Wildling, and Northman.” The room is silent, Sansa holding their attention completely. “Regardless of what happened afterwards in the South, here in the North we remember each life given for the triumph of the living against Death itself. You are all always welcomed here, as are your children and their children after them. The debt are owed by everyone in this world is insurmountable.”

   
Sansa pauses, makes eye contact with as many people as she can before she raises her cup even higher and says, "Tonight, as it does and will do every night, the North remembers.”

   
Gendry looks at the stony faces echo their Queen’s promise, cups high in the air, and he feels unbidden tears prick his eyes. 

   
That night he dreams that he found Arya’s corpse on the grounds of Winterfell. He wakes in a cold sweat, throws off the pile of furs on the bed he has been given and goes for a walk. The weeks Gendry had been at Winterfell a year ago were not enough to familiarize himself with the stone halls and passageways, especially when he spent most of his time in the forge. But he somehow makes it to the battlements, a place he has not been since he was shoving aside broken bodies of friend and foe alike looking for the spear he had made Arya. Looking for proof of her death or her life. 

   
Gendry is only moderately surprised to find the battlements occupied, and by the Queen herself no less. He is tired, but not tired enough to desert the courtesies he is now especially obligated to perform. 

   
“Your Grace,”  he bows, “I apologize for interrupting. I can find somewhere else.” He cringes at his own attempts to sound formal and educated. 

   
“Lord Baratheon,” says Sansa, turning to look at him with a quirk of her eyebrow. “You are perfectly welcome to breathe the same night air as I am.” If anything, she looks amused at his discomfort.

   
“Thank you, your Grace.” His eyes dart to the other side of the walkway where whoever makes up her Queensguard is no doubt lurking.

   
They stand in silence, looking at the thicket of trees in the distance.

   
“You know, I often think of you, Lord Baratheon, and how you are faring in your lonely castle,” she says. He is caught off guard, but perhaps not surprised. The weeks they spent at Winterfell together between the Long Night and the council where they made Bran the King were fraught with uncertainty and grief that they shared. 

   
“I have not forgotten those weeks we both lived in fear for those we love.” She does the eyebrow thing again. It reminds him of her sister.

   
“Please, your Grace, Gendry is just fine. And I am grateful for you Grace’s understanding during those times. I understand my emotions were not…proper.” When the raven had reached them telling of the siege and burning of Storm’s Landing, he had fallen to his knees and howled. He had gone to the Godswood for lack of a place to grieve the almost certain death of Arya, only to find Sansa there, Ser Brienne beside her,  both silent and still, with tears falling down their cheeks. Sansa did not even seem to notice his presence, but they all sat in silence as they cried. 

   
“Propriety seems useless in times of war, Gendry, though sometimes it is what I have clung to in times of crisis.” The raven announcing the death of the Dragon Queen had come not a week later, written in Davos’s crooked hand, telling them of those who had survived the burning and the supposed fate of Jon and Tyrion. Sansa had called him to her solar to deliver the news that Arya was alive, and said nothing at his watery thanks and quick dismissal, nor when she found him again in the Godswood later that day.

   
“I have had one letter from my sister since she departed. Has she contacted you?” Gendry really meant to tell her, he really did, but he scarcely believed the letters were real, so how could he share such possible falsehood with a Queen?

   
“I have, your Grace,” he says, keeping his eyes on the trees. 

   
“I am glad she has not deserted her wits.”

   
At this, he looks to her. “Your Grace?”

   
Her gaze is quite terrifying, really, even though he suspects she is trying to be kind to him. “Arya is a great many things, Gendry, and there are no secrets in Winterfell. I am not surprised your…confessions did not go well last year, but I would also be surprised if Arya had not returned your affections. I have not seen her as at peace as when she saw you in the courtyard after the Long Night. She would be stupid to try to erase those feelings and ignore such a man.” 

   
Gendry is speechless, his mouth gaping. Sansa only smirks at him. 

   
“I thank you for coming all the way up here, Gendry. Feel free to stay as long as you like. Winterfell  is your place, just as it is mine. You fought and bled for it. I will now leave you to your peace. Good night.” She stalks down the battlements as he quickly bows to her and as he suspected, a knight he does not know in a cloak he thinks is gray emerges from the shadows to follow her. 

   
He stays on the battlements for quite a while after that, casting his mind up high and to the West, wondering what on earth Arya could be doing right now. 

* * *

  _A year then, if I’m right. That was fucking awful, wasn’t it? I still dream about it sometimes, parts of it coming back to me much more clearly than when they happened. That’s what smacking your head into a stone wall will do to you, I guess._

_I’m sorry I ruined that nice spear you made me. I fancied I’d get to kill the ice dragon with it, but stopping dead fuckers from stabbing me in the eye with ice was pleasing enough._

_It’s funny that so many of us survived fighting the dead only to be cut down or burned alive by each other weeks later._

_Do you remember the feeling after it all ended? When everything in front of you collapsed, but this time it was a good thing? I remember sitting in the courtyard, blood dripping from head onto the snow, trying to understand what had just happened. What I had done._

_I remember the look on your face as you found half of the spear on the battlements. You stared at it for a moment, your knuckles growing white as you held it in your hands. I thought you were going to break it. But then you turned at exactly the right time — before I could duck away — and saw me. Quite a fucking miracle you didn’t fall straight off the battlements in your rush to get to the ground. Oh Gendry, always stupid and reckless._

_I’ve kept moving over here, not staying in one place for too long. Hacked off all my hair off because it’s fucking humid here. Best way to make friends is to ask them to spar with me — best way to keep them is to let them think they can beat me. Too bad I’m not in the business of friendship these days. I think I’ve forgotten how to do it._  

* * *

It takes four years for Ser Davos to finally convince him to take the trip up to King’s Landing, a short one considering the distances he’s crossed before while traveling Westeros. 

  
The journey is uneventful, and soon he is greeted by his old friend. Though it has only been a few years since he has seen him, the man is aging. Gendry hopes he will allow himself a break from his service to the King sooner rather than later. 

   
“Welcome back to King’s Landing, my Lord,” he says, with a heavy pat on the back and laughter in his eyes. Gendry quirks a smile.

   
“Oh piss off. I can’t fucking stand being called that, especially in my old home,” he says back. They laugh together as they walk to the Red Keep.

   
Gendry has not been here since the council. Then, the city had barely stopped smoking. Bodies lingered in the streets despite intensive cleanup efforts. The Winterfell party, including Ser Brienne and Lady Sansa, were camped outside the city grounds, as nothing could suitably house them, and no one wanted to be engulfed in the scent of burning flesh longer than necessary. Gendry had no idea what was to happen, and was apprehensive. He did not see Arya until they were all seated, awaiting the arrival of Jon and Tyrion. She appeared at the last moment, sitting beside her brother and sister, but she looked at him. Her face betrayed nothing but a soft quirk of her mouth as she nodded a greeting. He nodded back. It had been the first time he had seen her since he and Sansa learned she was alive. There were fresh scars on her face, the bruising around them just beginning to fade. He did not know what to do, what to say, so he said nothing. 

   
They only spoke after a new king had been decided, and only for a moment. She appeared at his elbow as he paced outside his tent, trying to decide if he would go straight to Storm’s End and what the fuck he was supposed to do when he got there.

   
“I am leaving,” she said. He tried to keep his face blank and certainly failed. 

   
“As am I,” he replied. Oh, how he wished to touch her. 

   
“I may not see you again,” she said, not looking too bothered by the possibility. 

   
“I thought you were dead,” he blurted. Immediately, he looked away, frustrated as his inability to appear anything other than an idiot in front of her. 

   
She placed a hand on his arm and his eyes snapped back to hers. “You’re an idiot if you think a dragon can best me,” she said, teasing in her tone, but her face soft and eyes hard with honesty. 

   
Sansa called her name. They were to say goodbye to Jon. She looked at him one last time, then turned and stalked away, not turning back. His eyes followed her until she disappears. He did not see her again. 

   
So, when he walks inside the newly constructed Red Keep, he’s not incredibly focused on the task at hand — being social. 

   
Ser Davos shows him to his rooms and asks if he might not want a drink and some time to catch up. He agrees. Gods, he really must be a hermit if he needs wine every time he gets invited somewhere.

   
“So, have you married yet?” the knight asks once they are several goblets in. 

   
Gendry nearly spits out his wine. He’s had enough of this berating from his advisors, but he did not expect it from his friend. Someone who was there. Someone who must _know_. 

   
The thing is, he thinks about it, he really does. Constantly. The lords he has hosted always bring their daughters for hope that he’ll notice one of them and decide to make her his Lady. He considers courting a few of them, even just slinking to a whorehouse for a night. But he knows he has not and will not lay with anyone for fear they will not understand. 

   
They will not understand the scar on his thigh from the axe of a wight. They will not understand the scars on his knuckles and the calluses he maintains despite having no reason to as a Lord. They will not understand the journey that brought him to his title, how he does not really want it, not anymore. He is, in truth, also afraid he would say Arya's name in bed. 

   
It makes him feel weak, sure, but he is no fool. He knows he still loves her, and will probably love her until the end of his days. He can live with that, he really thinks he can. But he must live with it, and the weight of what he has seen, alone. He tells Ser Davos as much, and is greeted with a sigh and a pat on the shoulder. 

   
“My boy, do not live in sadness forever,” he says, and Gendry just downs his drink.

   
The next night, he is invited to dine with the King and his council. Bran largely looks the same, except for a lack of Northern furs draped across his lap and around his shoulders. The necessary courtesies are employed, and Gendry is surprised to be seated next to the King himself. They do not talk through the meal, though conversation is happening around them. 

   
That is, until the King asks Gendry directly, “I understand you are quite lonely in your castle, my lord.” 

   
Gendry tried to conceal his surprise. He should be better at remembering that the King is more than just that.  But still, why the fuck does everyone want to talk about his loneliness? 

   
“Your Grace, I am very grateful for the title and the lands.” Bran’s expression does not change. 

   
“But you are lonely.” Gendry swallows, looking around the table. No one seems to be paying them any mind. 

   
“Yes, your Grace. It can be lonely at times.” He wonders if Bran has the capacity to be lonely. “But it is nothing I am not used to. The bastard life was a lonely one.” 

   
“Until you met Arya.” Gendry looks at the King, only to find the unnaturally still eyes staring back at him. He’s grateful nothing was in his mouth, or it might have ended up all over the table.  He says nothing. 

   
“Starks are born and die in Westeros,” Bran says, “ All of them.” He then looks towards Ser Podrick, who quickly comes behind Bran’s chair to facilitate his exit. Gendry numbly stands with the rest of the table. 

   
He does not sleep that night.  

* * *

_Have you married anyone yet? It’s been long enough — you really should be getting to it. If you are married, I hope your lady wife does not mind these letters. Hello, lady wife. Hope Gendry isn’t a fucking idiot._

_Maybe you haven’t married. I know you’d never fuck a whore and bring a bastard into the world, so what on earth do you do for fun? Not that bastards are bad things. You should know this by now._

_I’ve heard whispers that Bran is doing just fine. Not that anyone cares much about Westeros over here. There certainly know what it is — there are some who claim to remember the conquering of the Targeryens hundreds of years ago, that the screams of the burned carried over the sea. I do not tell them that I have heard those screams too._

_I know it’s snobbish, but it is hard to relate to people who have seen a much different world than we have. I do not wish what I have seen on anyone. I am glad you were not in Kings Landing that day. I only recently started eating fire roasted meat, once a woman showed me how to spice it so it smells like anything but as it cooks._

_But really, what do you do for fun? I cannot imagine you’ve got many friends, though not for lack of trying. I know how hard it can be to get people to treat you normally when you’re lordly. I do hope you do something other than pound away useless metal in what I’m sure is a great forge in your great castle._

_Maybe these letters have never reached you after all. Or maybe you burn them all before reading. I certainly wouldn’t blame you. You must know that I’m not sorry about any of it — the good bits or the bad bits. I’m glad to have called you family, whatever that meant._

* * *

In the sixth year of summer, Gendry finally feels proud of what he has accomplished. 

  
The orphanage he has begun in Storm’s End is thriving. Almost two years into being a Lord, he invited orphans from the Stormlands as well as King’s Landing to come and live in his giant castle, giving them the opportunity to be children until they wanted to be something else. The Septas he recruited were kind and gentle though firm, instilling in the children they had no debt to pay but to care for those around them like their own family. He supped with them every month, made sure to know all of their names, and provided as much as he could. The same went for the bastards of the Stormlands. Gendry is adamant that they know they were valued and have opportunity in his household if nowhere else. His advisors wonder at his determination to give them options, but do not question it. Bastards with the name Storm are welcome in his castle, given a place to live and work to do. They are not to be ashamed. 

   
And yet, he wonders what the point of it all is. It’s not that he hasn’t enjoyed it. He is just tired. Wondering if he should get on a ship and never come back. Wondering if he should take up an aged offer to smith at Winterfell for a Queen he respects and even enjoys the company of. Wondering if anything will have much meaning or feel permanent or if he will be happy. 

   
One day, as he is watching some training in the yard with the younger children, he decides to ask the advice of the only person who will understand his feeling of being lost — a fellow bastard. 

  
Selma Storm is supervising some sparring between Storm’s End’s vast array of children, and he joins her at the edge of the practice pit. Since he politely demanded the children treat him as least lordly as possible, she merely glances his way and inclines her head with a quiet, “M’lord.” 

   
They watch two children, boys of around ten, spar with wooden swords. When one boy knocks the other down, quickly holding out his hand to help his opponent up, Gendry turns to Selma.

   
“ Do you ever think about the people who didn’t mean to leave us like they did, but left us anyway?” he asks her.

   
She clearly did not expect this. “M'lord?” she replies, confused and amused. 

   
He huffs. “Like, your mother, my mother, our fathers, the people who were supposed to love us, and maybe even did, but left anyway. Are we supposed to hate them?” He tries very hard to keep the desperation out of his tone. Really, he doesn’t know where this is coming from, but he can’t stop now. He has to _know_  he is not alone.

   
Selma gives a long suffering sigh, having seen right through him. “M'lord, people leave all the time for many reasons. Maybe because they wanted to, maybe because they had to. The people we love always leave us in the end, whether it is their choice or not.  You just have to take the love they gave you and take the love they taught you to give and make sure you give it to other people, teaching them the same.” She looks at him, and he is staring at her, but not really seeing. “I do not think we are meant to be alone, m'Lord. The gods, old or new, do not allow us to live without love.” She rests her hand on his shoulder. “And who knows. That love that you so crave that you think was taken from you might come back to you when you least expect it. Maybe in the form of someone else, someone who makes everything fall into place.”

  
Gendry snaps his eyes to hers. She grins at him, and spreads her arm wide, gesturing to the scene in front of them. “I’d say you’ve done a fine job of teaching these people to keep love in their hearts for themselves and for one another.” He merely nods. 

   
When he goes back to his chambers, he tries to write a reply to Arya, the idea of the gods not letting people live without love on his mind. He’s done this a few times before while practicing his writing in earlier years. The stack of unsent, unfinished letters sits underneath a bowl of coins on his desk. He pulls them out to leaf through them, something he has done hundreds of times. 

   
_Arya,_

_I cannot belif you ar alive. Why did you leaf? Why have you writin me? You kno I cant reply. I did not think you so crul—_

_Arya,_

_I dream of the ded most nights. I dream of you, ded at my fet, the sper I made you splintrd and usless. What would I have done if you had dyed? The moment I saw you alive was mabe the most releved I have ever ben. And when I reached you, how you leaned your hed against me for just a momnt, I think of this all the time and —_

_  
  
_ _Arya,_

_How could you think I would marry? Surly, you must know. You MUST know. I —_

_Arya,_

_I spoke the truth when I proposed to you, even if it was ill delivered. None of this means anything without you. That’s not to say that I am unable to live without you — I know you’d scoff at that — but it certainly makes things harder when no one around me understands what it has taken to get here. They have not seen, they have not done, they have not feared. They are good people. They are my people now. But they are just not my family. Do I have one of those anymore? Or did it sail across the sea with you?_

Gendry sets the papers down. Gods, how pathetic he is. What a life he has here, what opportunity and goodnesses and safety. But oh, how he wishes. How he wishes. He thinks he would trade a great number of things for a simpler life, a life where he did not know the joy of love and its pain. But he thinks about what Selma said. Maybe he would not be able to give so much love had he not been given it. By his mother, by Ser Davos, Hot Pie, his brothers at the forge, the men who fought alongside him at Winterfell, and yes, Arya. 

   
He picks up his quill to write another letter. 

 

_Arya,_

_I am surrounded by people constantly yet I feel very alone. Is this how you felt growing up, knowing you never wanted the life that was laid out for you? Is this how you felt after the things you saw, the things you did, the things no one knows? Like life was passing by without a care for what you have seen? I think we all feel like that now, especially those who lost someone. Well, we all lost something, at least._

_I know you did not say it, but thank you for caring for me me. It has taken me a long time to understand that you did, right from the start. I am still angry and hurt you left. I know I did not do any of it right, really. I was desperate for love, desperate for family, and you, the only person I’ve ever wanted to be both of those things, was finally there. But still, why did you have to go? I do not understand. Please, please tell me what I did. I just want to understand._

_Please, Arya, please come back. I just want to see you again, just once._

* * *

_I had managed not to kill anyone since I left until yesterday. I’m a bit pissed off, really, because now I have to actually clean Needle and not just let it sit at my hip making me look menacing. It’s nice to know that I still remember how to kill someone. I hope you know I never actually enjoyed it. Well, except maybe when I wiped House Frey off the map. That wasn’t…not fun._

_The thing about the killing I have done is it pulled me even further away from who I was supposed to be. A lady, a daughter, a woman, a soldier, even. I forgot how to fight for other people — I was just killing to balance what had been taken from me. But seeing my family again after so long, understanding that there was no better way to be killing than to protect the ones you love, that brought me back a little bit. The Long Night brought me back, so close to who I had been before all of these things happened to me and I tried to be No One, that I had to leave. I was afraid._

_I was afraid for the first time in so long, and it didn’t seem to stop. I was afraid the night I came to you in the forge. I was afraid while using your spear to fend off Death, even more afraid when I didn’t have it anymore. I was afraid I’d find your corpse on the grounds of my home, next to my sister and my brothers and everyone I’ve ever loved. I was afraid to leave Winterfell and go to King’s Landing so much that I did not say goodbye to anyone. I was afraid I’d not get to kill Cersei but also afraid I’d get to. And in Kings Landing that day, Gendry, I was more afraid than I’ve ever been. I felt like a little girl again, watching my father die in front of me but not being able to do anything to stop it. But this time it was hundreds of people, innocents, being burned alive, crushed alive, stabbed, raped, murdered._

_After that, it was hard to be afraid of anything else. It was hard to feel anything else. So you understand why I left, right? I had to. No one would have wanted me as I was then, not even you._

_Seeing the world is great fun and all, but being surrounded by new and unfamiliar things gets old. It’s a bit fucked up that killing some fucker who tried to rob me made me realize it and get all emotional, but that’s nothing new, is it?_

_I don’t know, maybe a familiar horizon would do me some good._

* * *

He has not gotten a letter in almost a year. It pisses him off, frankly, that he has become dependent on them. It’s not like she’s ever written anything substantive about where she’s gone or what she’s been doing. Mostly, she insults him. But, he’s worried. And he’s pissed about it. He’s kept them all against his better judgment in a wooden box in his bedchambers. But, really, did he expect himself to do anything else? He’s reread them so many times in the past year that he has them all memorized, could write them from memory over and over again. He laughs at the idea and what she would think. _Stupid bull_ , she’d say, _you’ve mixed up your d and b again._ It’s a good thing she’ll never get to read the replies he wrote her, even if they made him feel better.

  
And he has written hundreds of letters since his writing became tolerable. Correspondence with the Queen in the North over small, trivial things, but correspondence all the same. Infrequent inquiries from King’s Landing into whether he had taken a wife yet — from Lord Tryion — the state of the orphans — from Ser Davos. Only two or three ravens from somewhere beyond the Wall — Jon’s letters are similar to Arya’s in their style, rambling and without courtesy, but Gendry has appreciated them all the same. 

  
It seems that Summer might finally be waning and the people along the coast are readying themselves for the Autumn storms that will soon roll in from the Summer Sea. He must remember to send a letter to Evenfall Hall inquiring after Tarth’s preparations. 

   
But, today, Gendry is hung up on what the King told him back when he visited Kings Landing for the first time since the council. _Every Stark’s final resting place is Westeros._ Her last letter certainly _sounded_  like she had plans to at least stop going West. But Gendry knows enough not to try to predict Arya Stark. 

   
It’s fucking typical that he’s in the forge when she arrives not a week later. He’s had a shit day and is quite honestly in no shape to entertain anyone, so when he hears someone clear their throat behind him it takes everything not to turn around and chuck the hammer he is holding. 

   
“What is it?” he says without turning his back, lifting the hammer for another toss at the sword he’s making. 

   
Silence answers him. Gendry sucks in a breath. Maybe if he doesn’t turn around, she’ll go away, this ghost of a woman, because who else could it be?. But he knows he owes it to himself to see this through, so he takes a breath and turns. 

   
She doesn’t look that different, if he’s honest. He allows his eyes to travel her body, checking for anything amiss. She has foregone her heavy leathers and cloak for something more suited to summer and perhaps the hotter climate she has been frequenting. Linen, he thinks. Needle hangs at her hip, as does the Valyrian dagger. He looks at her face next, finding her expression flat. Same scar above her right eye, same ring around her neck, though much fainter. He remembers that she cut her hair; the evidence is there in the jagged way it falls across her face, though it is long enough to be pulled back into the bun she sported the last time he saw her. 

   
He saves her eyes for last. Stormy grey, betraying nothing. Once it’s clear he has finished, she quirks her eyebrow — seriously, is that a Stark thing?— and smirks at him. She bends into a deep bow at the waist, and says, “My Lord.” 

   
The words of denial are on his lips immediately, but he holds them back. Before she can come back up he bows the same, and manages to say, “My lady,” with as much false grace as he can offer. He rises to find her frowning at him. Ah, good, perhaps he has pissed her off. 

   
“Have you room in your castle for a lonely traveller?” she asks him, tilting her head slightly to the side. 

   
Gods, he wants to be angry. And he is angry, really, but he’s almost choking on the disbelief of seeing her and the need to touch her to see if she’s real. 

   
“Depends on how long this lonely traveller is staying,” he grates out. Her face goes blank again. 

   
“Depends on how long she is welcome.” He scoffs. Surely she knows she could demand this castle and all that comes with it and he’d give it to her without a second thought. “Will the Lady of Storm’s End not mind?”

   
“I’m sure she wouldn’t, if she existed,” he says, carefully watching her. “Storm’s End is open to whomever needs a place.” She looks satisfied at his answer, though her eyes betray a small bit of triumph. He does not dare dwell on it, instead setting down his hammer and walking out of the forge into the night air. Gods, was he really in there that long? 

   
He assumes Arya is following him. She must want him to know it, too, because he can hear her footsteps if he tries really hard. 

   
“I’ll have someone show you to your chambers. Stay as long as you want. A maid will attend to you, should you want a bath or something.”

   
“Are you saying I smell? My, Lord Gendry, that does not seem like proper conduct for a lord.” 

   
He whips around to look at her, but his anger fades as fast as it had come. He sighs. “I will see you tomorrow, if you wish.” 

   
They reach the main castle corridor and stop. She stares at him, and stares at him, and stares at him. Just as it becomes too much and he turns to leave, her hand rests upon his cheek.

   
“It is good to see you Gendry,” she says, grey eyes boring into blue. 

   
He cannot help it. He leans into her hand and says, “You too, Arya.” 

   
Quick as a flash, she’s gone with the maid to her rooms. 

   
The next day he does not break his fast in the hall, and assumes she does not either. He almost goes straight to the forge, but instead goes to his chamber hoping to sit at his desk and mope, only to find it occupied. 

   
Arya is sitting in his chair, feet on the table,  the stack of letters he could never send her in her hands. 

   
"Were you going to tell me any of this, or were you going to sit and stew until I got bored and pissed off again?” He can tell she is angry, but dammit, so is he. 

   
“Why are you snooping through my things? You have no right—“

   
“No right? No right! I, of all people, have the right to know you, Gendry. I am the one who knows you best!”

   
“Then why did you leave? Huh? Why did you leave me?” he cannot help how his voice cracks at the end. 

   
She is silent then, but her feet come to the ground and she stands. 

   
“You know I had no choice. You _know_ that. I _told_  you.” She looks uncharacteristically vulnerable for a second. “Unless you really never got them. The letters, I mean.” 

   
Gods, he is so soft for her. “No,” he says, voice quiet so it hopefully doesn’t fucking crack again, “I got them.” 

   
She seems to search for something to say. It unsettles him to see her so…unsettled. “Your handwriting is nice. Perfect for a Lord.” 

   
“Arya, please,” he sighs, “Must we do thi—“

   
“Yes, we must _do this_ ,” she interrupts. “We must _do this_  because I sailed back across the fucking sea from gods-know-where and walked for a fucking hour instead of getting chewed to bits in your fucking Shipbreaker Bay to fucking find _you_  after all this time because I though maybe you’d be at least _glad to see me_ even though you’re a fucking _Lord_ with things to do and women to seduce and—“

   
_“Arya_.” 

   
She stops. She’s moved closer to him throughout her rant, now just an arm’s length away, and he cannot stand how upset she is. She doesn’t appear to notice the tears in her eyes. He steps forward and his hands rise unbidden to her cheeks. He figures it’s a good sign she does not jerk away from him. 

   
“Arya, look at me. _Please_.” She does. “You read those letters. You know, you _know_  I have done nothing but hope you’d show up someday. Surely, you must know I am stupid enough to have hoped all this time you’d return.” His thumbs run across her sharp cheekbones, and her right hand rises to cover his. 

   
“I cannot apologize for it. For leaving,” she says. “I had to go” — he nods — “if there was ever hope of me being able to come back to — to Westeros.” 

   
“Just to Westeros?” he says, no jape in his tone. After a moment, she shakes her head. “No. Not just to Westeros. To right here. To _you_ , Gendry. To you.” 

   
He sighs with the depth of hundreds of days without her, hundreds of days wondering if she was alive and eating and sleeping, hundreds of days hoping without reason. He lowers his forehead to hers and closes his eyes. 

   
“Arya. _Arya.”_ Her hands move to his face, thumbs catching tears he didn’t know were falling. “I have loved you for so long, I don’t know what it feels like not too.” He hears a sharp intake of breath and opens his eyes. 

   
She is looking at him with the same tenderness she had when she pulled him up from his knees after he proposed to her. This should scare him, but it doesn’t. It becomes clear to him, suddenly, that she’s loved him all this time, the way he has loved her, and he says as much. 

   
“Oh, of course I have, of _course_ I have, you stupid, stupid man,” she says, breathily. 

   
“So, will you stay?”

   
“Yes. Yes, of course. Weren’t you listening? Why else would I have come back?” Gendry cannot help it, he throws back his head and laughs. Arya smiles at him, eyes shining. 

   
“So, are you going to kiss me, or do I have to do all the work again?” she teases. And oh, oh how his heart almost bursts. He kisses her immediately, trying to tell her how he missed her, how he loved her and loves her still, how he would do anything she asked, all these years later. Her arms go around his shoulders and his around her waist and thinks about how he cannot wait to show her all he has done for these people, all they have done for him. How she can train the children he has given a home, teaching them to be as fierce in protecting each other as they are in loving. How maybe, maybe she’ll allow him to take her to a Godswood —gods, how he wished Stannis hadn’t burned his — and swear oaths to each other. He’ll swear anything for her. Anything at all. 

   
Later, when she explores his bedchamber wearing naught but his tunic, she finds the wooden box. Kneeling on the floor, she does not look at him as she opens it gently. She runs her fingertips over the aged parchment and smirks to herself. 

   
“I can’t believe those fucking birds made it,” she says. His eyes do not leave her. 

   
He just looks, and looks, and looks. She smiles. 

**Author's Note:**

> are you emo? I'm emo. leave kudos, comments, whatever to reassure me I am not alone ! does the timeline make sense?? who cares, since we have to live FOREVER with d&d's decisions


End file.
